Nothing in my post indicated such a thing, perhaps you should re-read it.
Perrhaps not, and I stated that in my post as well. Still, I don’t see you complaining about Sega not killing the Saturn earlier and making all their 3D games for the PSOne so that they could all have true 3D transparencies and other such effects and also have teams like TA work with a console that would allow them to do more polycount wise etc.
The differences between the Playstation and Saturn are nothing campared to the differences between the PS2 and Xbox or any of the next generation consoles.
The bottom line is the PS2 is holding games back by virtue of its popularity.
Oh no. Wow, I’m sure if you told Sony that they’d instantly release the PS3 and raise the quality of the hardware across the market.
Of course, I’m being sarcastic. People don’t give a shit about the hardware, GD, only about the games available for their console. And that’s not my view, it’s just the general populations.
I just find it rather hypocritical when gamers claim that graphics suddenly don’t matter to them anymore. People will be singing a different tune when the time comes to choose between buying a PS3 and Xbox 2. Mark my words.
The only advantage of consequence the PS2 has over the competition is its wider range of Japanese RPGs. That’s all. The fact that Sega is practically forced to develop games for the poorly designed PS2 hardware is enough to annoy any Sega fan to no end.
Quite fond may be an understatement. 
It was the RPG series I grew up with, so it has a lot of sentimental value. Even though it’s been years since I last played the core games, my memory of people, towns, events, and other useless trivia is still pretty good. I can, for instance, off the top of my head remember that in Phantasy Star I “Secrets” are bought in Scion, cost 200 meseta, and that you have to bother the guy in the second-hand shop three times before he’ll sell them to you.
All that’s probably taking up brain space that could’ve been used for something useful, but that was my favorite series back in the day. I know it well enough that I’ll be deeply disappointed if PSU railroads over the previously existing timeline. If it’s a separate story, alternate universe, or whatever, that’s fine. I just don’t want existing continuity drastically rewritten (or worse, ignored) to make the “cool” game of the month.
That was definitely a problem with PSO, which I did play. I ended up only playing with people I knew because I got tired of all the idiots in the lobby, the hackers who broke into password-protected games (until that exploit got patched), and the thieves/poachers who would steal your hard-won treasure and/or your weapon when you died. But since it wasn’t an MMORPG and more like Blizzard’s Diablo series, it was relatively simple for a group of friends to meet in an obscure lobby and then start a password protected game. An MMORPG has no such privacy.
If they’re going the MMORPG route, they’ll need much better security this time.
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]
[quote=“Goonboy Panzer”]But that 's it is n’t it? Maybe the PC version will be the proper version. There’s this rumour going around that in america ,PSU will be released on Xbox and will be online for up to 65 players. You could say depending which market it’s released for that the game will appear on the system with the big user base.
so in Japan it’s PS2 and PC
In America it’s PS2 and Xbox.
But that’s if those rumors turn out to be true.[/quote]
If it was going to appear on the system with the big user base then it certainly wouldn’t appear on the PC in Japan…
It .[/quote]
It is coming out on the PC in Japan but It seems that it won’t appear on the PC in the west.
[quote=“Arcie”]
[quote=“Goonboy Panzer”]
Because PDS for the Saturn was still in it’s CURRENT generation whereas the PS2 is NOT. PSU should have gone to a more current console like the Gamecube than the backward PS2.[/quote]
The PS2 is still in it’s current generation. Has anything about PS3 been released outside of rumour and intregue? As far as I know, nada. Except the usual “Let’s wait for E3” response. Yeah, we’ve had some crap about the amazing new cell chip system that’s going to blow everyone away, but that’s looking the same as the emotion engine rubbish Sony spouted out before.
The PS2 has an established fanbase running into tens of millions. Let’s think about that for a second, whereas…
The Gamecube is rapidly becoming Ninty’s Dreamcast at present, in Europe at least, STILL being outsold by PS2 and XBox even though they came out earlier. The amount of units being sold in intervals is about half (off the top of my head) of PS2’s sold in the same time period.
Cancelling a game for one system for the sake of creating it anew on another does not have many good precedents. Scorcher, for instance.[/quote]
The PS2 is NOT in it’s current generation. It’s a five year old machine with
limited power competing against more powerful hardware. If Sega never
intended to be ambitious with PSU they would NEVER have put it on the PC as well which blows away the power of the Xbox let alone the PS2. This is going to be a situation similar to SONIC HEROES which SUFFERED in comparison to it’s MORE current cousins.
And having millions upon millions of users does n’t make it a better machine. If millions of people started eating shit are you going to join them? Did a million people who committed mass suicide in some cult all of a sudden make them correct about their belif? No it does n’t. So using that argument is pointless.
And the NGC is hardly the dreamcast of Nintendo as it’s been selling steadily for a while now and if it is the DC then it alone should have the best games on the market like the DC did and people still ignore it. That makes them correct too right?
Some of you won’t like this…
ONLY if you’re someone WHO doesn’t use COMMON SENSE and who TYPES in capitals every FEW words.
No, millions upon millions of users doesn’t make it a better machine. But think about this like a games developer. If you have an audience of millions of PS2 users who could potentially buy your product, are you instead going to avoid releasing the game on that console, and instead release it on, say, the Gamecube? Which, whilst possibly the better machine, does not boast anywhere near the same audience as the PS2. PS2 games will sell more units than other consoles, and therefore the console will always attract more companies who are less willing to take a chance.
Also, an example. Megaman. Nintendo released the SNES just after Megaman 3, and yet the next 3 MM games were on the NES. Why? Because Capcom had a formula that was selling and didn’t want to change it. The Sprites they used for the games were even the same each time! And yet people still bought MM4 and 5, whilst MM6 suffered lower sales, hence the release of MM7 on the SNES.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Incidentally, millions and millions have been eating shit. It’s called McDonalds.
I understand “Generation” as being the company consoles that compete with each other: Master System/NES generation, Genesis/SNES generation, Saturn/PS/N64 generation, Dreamcast/PS2/Xbox/GC generation. Obviously we have different definitions.
I used caps to define my point. But you would have known that if you use the same thing that your accusing me of not having…
[quote]
I understand “Generation” as being the company consoles that compete with each other: Master System/NES generation, Genesis/SNES generation, Saturn/PS/N64 generation, Dreamcast/PS2/Xbox/GC generation. Obviously we have different definitions.[/quote]
Obviously your definition is different to everybody elses.
The DC and PS2 are based on old technology than the Xbox and NGC are.
Specifically these systems appeared in 98/99 while the other two systems appeared during the early noughties.
Saying that the Xbox and NGC are of the same generation of the DC and PS2 is basically comparing a Saturn to an Ataric VCS.
In that logic you have used than you might as well include the PS3 and
the Xbox2 as being the same generation as the Xbox and Ps2 are in as well. Because they will ALL be competing with each other once they’re released at the end of the year.
I don’t judge it as who is competing with who and neither does anyone else.
The NES was still going strong in the early nineties and they were competing against the Genesis for market share even though they are not of the same generation.
While it’s obvious that Sega wants to get this game to the biggest audience
possible it makes no sense if the machine itself is severly limited to run such an ambitious game. And will the stupid sony fanboys take the bait of Sega’s new masterpeice,because I can tell you now on judging the way that Sega’s previous games have done on this primitve platform they won’t.
If the game is essentially an offline RPG with online overtones than it is definatly wasted on the Ps2. This game would sell better on a platform starved of a few good RPGs like the NGC and Xbox. Not a system where people’s only idea of an RPG is either FF or DQ.
So what’s your point? You follow the crowd and eat the shit with them or you don’t? All you’ve done is given shit a brand name …
Quite a few people talk about generations of game consoles in this way; I’d go as far as to say most people. It’s to do with what was competing with what, as Arcie said, but it’s specifically to do with approximate power: 8-bit consoles, 16-bit consoles, 32-bit consoles, 128-bit consoles, and so on. Neither of these things is a hard and fast rule, (as the Dreamcast wasn’t really competing with the Xbox or GameCube and the N64 was competing with 32-bit consoles,) but these factors do form most gamers’ idea of a generation. The PS2 may be a couple of years behind the GameCube and Xbox in hardware terms, but it’s certainly closer to them than it is to the PlayStation or Saturn, and it’s also competing with the GameCibe and Xbox in the market. When a successful game can be released simultaneously across two or more platforms with only minor differences in performance (e.g. Sonic Heroes), it’s understandable that people will consider them to be in the same generation.
[quote=“Lance Way”]
Quite a few people talk about generations of game consoles in this way; I’d go as far as to say most people. It’s to do with what was competing with what, as Arcie said, but it’s specifically to do with approximate power: 8-bit consoles, 16-bit consoles, 32-bit consoles, 128-bit consoles, and so on. Neither of these things is a hard and fast rule, (as the Dreamcast wasn’t really competing with the Xbox or GameCube and the N64 was competing with 32-bit consoles,) but these factors do form most gamers’ idea of a generation. The PS2 may be a couple of years behind the GameCube and Xbox in hardware terms, but it’s certainly closer to them than it is to the PlayStation or Saturn, and it’s also competing with the GameCibe and Xbox in the market. When a successful game can be released simultaneously across two or more platforms with only minor differences in performance (e.g. Sonic Heroes), it’s understandable that people will consider them to be in the same generation.[/quote]
Minor differences in performance? Try a very HUGE difference in performance when in regards to SONIC HEROES.
Look It may be different for this current generation of gamers but In MY era we all defined them by hardware technology. SONIC HEROES being released on the ps2 is the modern version of the original SONIC being ported on the Master System during the 16 bit wars. So it makes little difference I’m afraid.The thing they had in common was that the games suffered compared to their vastly superior cousins.
Each machine follows another in succesion to one another but each machine had five years to define it self which the PS2 has done. The Xbox and NGC won’t get that it seems until the next gen comes along soon.
The Master System version of Sonic 1 was not a port; it was a wholly different game that was written because the Master System couldn’t handle anything like the Genesis version of Sonic 1. In contrast, the PS2 version of Sonic Heroes is basically the GameCube / Xbox game with inferior performance; this is a very different thing from both a developer’s and a player’s perspective.
But if you’re strictly defining it by hardware technology, then surely the Genesis and SNES would have to be in different generations too? They also represented noticeably different levels of hardware quality, and there was also roughly two years between their creation dates. What struck people was that they were both 16-bit systems that were competing with each other, and that’s the same criteria that people are going by now: the PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox are all 128-bit systems that are competing with one other. Now sure, there may be more of a difference between the PS2 and GameCube than there was between the Genesis and the SNES, but it’s nowhere near as distinct as, say, the difference between the Master System and the SNES, which certainly did represent different generations.
The problem over the last dacade or so is that some companies have been getting their hardware for each competitive generation released way behind schedule, while others have been getting it out of the door as soon as they could in order to take a lead: look at the massive delay of the N64 compared to the 1994/95 releases of the Saturn and PlayStation for example, or the late release of the GameCube (and Xbox) compared to the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2. It’s easy to see why people still do view these as “generations” of consoles, even though the release dates and comparative technologies are further apart than they were in the past, as you say.
We’re confusing the definitions of generation here. Yes, the DC, PS2, GC and Xbox all belong to the same generation of “128 bit” consoles (I love how some gamers somehow forget to put the DC in the same category as if the three leading consoles are in a league of their own), but in terms of games and graphics, the PS2 has entered its last generation. Just like Shenmue 2 was a last generation DC title, so is PSU a last generation PS2 title which pushes the PS2 to a point where it simply cannot go any further (of course, we must remember that the DC’s lifespan was cut tragically short, so Shenmue 2 could be considered a third generation title depending on how much untapped potential the DC had left).
However, in terms of hardware the PS2 has more in common with the DC than it ever had with either the GC or Xbox.
I still maintain that PSU is out of its element on the PS2. We shall see.
Rune Lai: It looks like PSU will be a massively multi-player online RPG after all. I still hope that it has a huge offline component, though. Depending on how long the game has been in development, it’s certainly possible, or perhaps the online gameplay will just be more story-driven than before. I know a few people who will jump at the chance of playing a new online Phantasy Star game even if it is only available for the outdated PS2. I wish I could share in their enthusiasm.
It’s amazing how much a series of games can fuel a person’s imagination especially when they are growing up. Games can be a great source of inspiration if you ask me.
That was simply a reply to your post that made it sound like it would appear on the PC in Japan because it was a system with “the big user base” there. I did not mean that it would NOT be released on the PC in Japan, I simply meant that if the decision was based on the “big user base” alone then it certainly wouldn’t.
The PS2 in general has been entering its last generation with the begining of this year. Games such as the Tekken 5 port and God of War have really pushed the console to its limits like you say Geoffrey, I frankly don’t know how much more they can squeeze out of that machine.
Just to clarify, the Xbox isn’t a “128-bit” system technically as it runs on a 32-bit Intel CPU. The amount of bits is just the size of the registers - for example, on a 64-bit system, the CPU could hold one 64-bit instruction at a time in one of its registers.
I believe the Xbox 2 will be 64-bit is well, but of course it will by no means be inferior to the current generation of consoles. CPU speed is much more important.
You know, the PS2 can display more polygons at once than even the GameCube for all the good it does.
[quote=“Goonboy Panzer”]
So what’s your point? You follow the crowd and eat the shit with them or you don’t? All you’ve done is given shit a brand name …[/quote]
Congratulations on not being able to recognise a joke when it jumps up and bites you on the nose.
So, since when does a sloppy conversion of a game characterise a whole system? Is the Sega Saturn WORSE than the PSOne in 2D simply because of the crappy conversion of Castlevania Symphony of the Night which was getting slowdowns and lacked several effects of the PSOne version? No? Yeah, that’s what I thought…
If it’s offline as well, it’s probably not an MMORPG-style game. PSO was an online RPG, but it was not MMO. PSO was closer to Diablo or Neverwinter Nights since you have a password-protected playing area (if you want it) with a small number of people and there is a start, middle, and end to the storyline. PSO was a complete game that did not go on forever, even though players could play it over and over again to level up and find rare items. I’m fine with something like that.
Of course, I would prefer a primariily offline game in the style of the classic PS games, but if PSU is like PSO I’ll at least give it a try. I may end up not liking it anyway, particularly if the offline portion is severely neglected, but at least there is an offline portion. I have a friend who subscribes to EGM so needless to say I’ll be borrowing his copy when he gets the May issue.